The Year of the 'Whole Child' in Vallejo schools

Jeff Duncan-Andrade, a high school teacher from East Oakland, talks to Vallejo educators last week about the importance of knowing the context in which their students go to school. Duncan-Andrade will work with Vallejo teachers and administrators for the next school year, which starts Monday. (Lanz Christian Ba es/Times-Herald)

When Vallejo students return to classes Monday morning, most will come back to a system designed to catch them when they fall, or so district officials hope.

That's because the district is tripling the number of its full-service community school this year, bringing under one roof a variety of services ranging from feeding hungry students to dealing with teenagers on probation.

This marks a shift in philosophy for Vallejo, which now espouses the idea that if schools take care of the whole child, rising test scores will follow.

"We have been rapidly implementing structural change," Superintendent Ramona Bishop said last week as teachers and administrators gathered at Jesse Bethel High School for professional development.

Many of those changes began before Bishop began, such as the closure and consolidation of several schools. Others bear her hallmark, such as the full-service community schools, the Positive Youth Justice Initiative and making career academies mandatory for high school students.

This year, the district is in a state of fast-paced upheaval.

But whether those structural changes -- from the academic to the holistic -- take hold and bear fruit remain to be seen.

The Whole Child

For years, as the school board worked to regain local control after a 2004 financial scandal led to a state takeover, the focus had largely been on improving the district's test scores and dropout rates.

But beginning last year, Bishop and the school board began scrutinizing the whole child, identifying areas where a school could help but were outside the traditional responsibilities of a K-12 system.

"(Bishop) wanted to turn all of her schools into full-service community schools," said Kindra Montgomery, director of training and community relations at the UC Davis School of Education Center for Community School Partnerships.

Bishop approached Montgomery and her team because of their experience in building links between schools and the community. Essentially, that's what a full-service community school does -- puts otherwise diverse services in one place.

"Schools have a monopoly on children," Montgomery said, explaining why it made sense to centralize services for youths on campuses.

The district launched a pilot program last year at five sites: Jesse Bethel and Vallejo high schools, Solano Middle, Elsa Widenmann Elementary, and Loma Vista Environmental Sciences Academy.

"We are really, as a system, going back to, 'Let's not ignore the whole child,'" Bishop said.

Ten more campuses will be made full-service community schools this year, serving nearly 9,500, or about two-thirds, of the district's students.

At each site, students can be referred to various services based on the particular issue they're facing, whether it be homelessness, hunger or a lack of school supplies. For issues that require more support, such as attendance or behavioral problems, a "student success team" is formed made up of parents, teachers and other stakeholders in the student's life.

Last year, both Loma Vista and Elsa Widenmann saw 80 of these teams created to serve their students, said Alana Shackelford, director of community partnerships and engagement.

"I think (the first year) went well. I think it was very timely," Shackelford said.

The remaining schools -- Hogan Middle and Pennycook, Glen Cove and Wardlaw elementary schools -- will be converted to full-service community schools next year.

Next year will also see the addition of doctors at the 15 community schools, thanks to a partnership with Kaiser Permanente.

In addition to the full-service community schools, the district will soon hear whether it has received a $400,000 two-year Positive Youth Justice Initiative grant from the Sierra Health Foundation.

The district was one of six recipients of a $75,000 planning grant to develop a program for "crossover youth" -- that is, youth who are involved both in the child welfare system and the juvenile justice system. Vallejo was the only school district to get the planning grant; the other five were county probation departments.

However, the district has formed a strong partnership with Solano County Probation, Shackelford said. Additionally, the grant was written to include other community stakeholders, such as Kaiser Permanente, Solano County Mental Health and the faith community.

The ultimate goal of the program is to keep students who "crossover" from the child welfare system, such as foster care, from dropping out of school or becoming repeat offenders when they end up in juvenile hall.

If the program is successful, a crossover student will transition immediately from juvenile hall to school, reducing the chances for recidivism, Shackelford said. On campus, the a positive youth justice site liaison (paid for by the grant) will have a case load of crossover youth and ensure that they make all their necessary meetings and act as an advocate for the child.

District and county officials hope a successful program in Vallejo can then be replicated throughout Solano County.

Academies and academics

There will be more than 70 new teachers in Vallejo come Monday.

Even as most of the district's campuses begin focusing on the whole child, academic achievement remains a keen goal. Part of the reform efforts include the establishment of "wall-to-wall" academies at both Jesse Bethel and Vallejo high schools.

Conceived two years ago, the initiative built upon existing career academies at Vallejo and Bethel, with the intention of having every student enrolled in one of the career academies beginning in the 10th grade. Ninth-graders have already been placed in separate "ninth-grade communities" to help ease the transition between high school and middle school.

With the establishment of four new academies this year, that vision will now be complete.

"Every 10th-grader will be in an academy, and every academy has a teacher at the helm of it," Bishop said.

The academies are all essentially small-learning communities, with students in one academy going through largely the same classes together with the same teachers. Each academy track ends with a capstone course and final project that reflects the skills learned in the academy, such as for example developing a business project or doing a biology experiment.

The new academies, developed out of parent and student surveys, are the Health and Fitness Academy and the Visual and Performing Arts Academy at Vallejo and the International Finance Academy and the Law and Justice Academy at Bethel.

Additionally, Bethel has established a Life Skills and Culinary Arts Academy for special education students, said Cassie Gossett, district coordinator of K-12 Education Services.

There will still be juniors and seniors next year who are not part of any academy, Gossett added.

But even as students navigate the new academies, teachers and administrators must also prepare themselves to begin implementing the Common Core standards.

Adopted by most states, Common Core creates a uniform standard among states that have adopted them, allowing academic achievement in California to be compared to those of Massachusetts, for example.

District reform coordinator Karen James said that the standards' expectations are less broad than current state standards, but go deeper. For example, students might read less texts, but spend more time analyzing the texts they do read, including nonfiction works.

There is an added focus on working together, with students expected to collaborate more often, reform coordinator Annette Hilts said.

California is planning to roll out new tests based on Common Core in the 2014-2015 school year. As such, this will be the last year students will take tests based on the California standards.

"Rather than students doing bubble-in tasks, they're going to have tasks that look at how students can apply (what they've learned)," James said.

Every school site will be holding a training for educators next month and in order to prepare them for the instructional shifts.

Challenges

Monday marks the beginning of a school year in Vallejo that will see the implementation of several major projects and reforms.

"This is really the year where everything comes together," Bishop said, adding that she hopes she's seen the end of the deep financial cuts incurred by districts during the Great Recession.

The increased class sizes last year and the teacher layoffs likely contributed to the slight dip this year in state test scores, Bishop said.

As the new year begins, the main challenge for the Vallejo City Unified School District will be to build more accountability, Bishop said.

"It causes a lot of fear," she said.

The district ended last school year by reviewing a Solano Grand Jury report that criticized district and school officials for safety issues at Vallejo High School, including not adhering to established policies. The district sent its response to the Grand Jury earlier this month.

Still, the district is working on firmly implementing its positive behavioral intervention and supports, a form of disciplinary system that rewards good behavior, and its restorative justice initiative that asks perpetrators to understand the effects of their actions and make amends to their victims.